The Orphan: Namesake for a county and a river

WALSENBURG — To passers-by, it looks like a random bump rising above the dusty landscape, isolated in the shadows of the picturesque Spanish Peaks and Wet Mountains.

Some have compared the cone-shaped hill to a mammoth sugarloaf or just a “strange hill” they readily observe on trips along Interstate 25.

Surrounded by sprawling desert brush and grasslands about 10 miles north of town, just east of I-25, this volcanic outcrop looks like an orphan to the beautiful Colorado mountain ranges to the west.

And that’s just what it is: El Huerfano (orphan in Spanish) or better known today as Huerfano Butte.

The small remnant of an ancient volcano, named in the late 1700s by an unknown Spanish trader, had for centuries been used as a natural beacon guiding Hispanos and Native Americans passing through the country.

The Colorado Historical Society said the name appeared in Spanish records as early as 1818.

“Huerfano County and Huerfano River were both named after it,” said Carolyn Newman, president of the Huerfano County Historical Society.

The butte, which sits on private land, is 300 feet tall and is made of slate and black basalt.

Newman said the butte served as a beacon to settlement after 1821 when the land became part of Mexico.

“It was good for Native Americans and travelers because it sits right next to the Huerfano River, which was part of the Trappers Trail, also called the Taos Trail, that goes over the Sangre de Cristo Pass and other passes,” Newman said.

A plaque at the site of the butte, created by the Colorado State Historical Society, says that in 1853, Col. John C. Fremont’s fifth and last Western expedition — a railroad survey — passed Huerfano Butte on its way to California. The plaque states that the expedition’s photographer, Solomon Carvalho, stopped to take a picture of the butte, which he thought looked like a “mammoth sugar loaf.”

A drawing of the picture is at the site today. It shows men on horses with equipment racing toward the butte.

Newman said some suggested that they place a statue of Fremont at the Butte, but it never came to fruition.

Through the years, the butte was surrounded by history.

Newman said just east of the butte, there were 10 Frenchmen who settled just east of the butte in 1861.

The plaque at the site says a Frenchman named Beaubois established a ranch in 1858 and later built a fort one-half mile north of the butte.

“It was known as Butte Valley. The Frenchmen were arrested in 1864 and taken to Denver because they were accused of harboring the Reynolds Gang, which was a band of Texas guerrillas who terrorized Southern Colorado during the Civil War,” Newman said,

Newman said the gang purchased $55 worth of goods at Butte Valley and the Frenchmen had been told to keep them so U.S. soldiers could come and arrest them.

“But they allowed them to leave. The case was dismissed, but most of the Frenchmen did not return to Butte Valley,” Newman said.

Another part of history surrounding the butte came when Thomas Hart Benson, a U.S. senator from Missouri, promoted building a railroad from St. Louis to the Pacific along the Huerfano Butte.

“He suggested a statue of (Christopher) Columbus beyond the butte pointing to the west and saying, ‘There is India,’ ” she said.

“That never happened either.”

The plaque at the butte also says that northern migrating New Mexicans established plazas and placitas — small agricultural communities — along the Huerfano River and on nearby streams.

“Travelers have always passed by it and wondered what it is. It’s a big part of the history of our communities here. It’s quite a landmark,” Newman said.